Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t2.171

c4.t2.171

We fully associate ourselves with Dr. Fick,³ in his doubts and conjectures on this particular point: "Have we to see in these legends the mythical form of an actual event, namely, the selection of a king by the purohita, or is the phussaratha nothing but a product of the rich imagination of the story-teller? To this no definite answer can be given, so long as our knowledge of phussaratha is confined to the Jātakas,⁴ but we do not consider the possibility excluded, that when the king died without an heir and the ministers chose a successor from among themselves or from another royal house, the latter was conveyed to his residence in a manner similar to the ceremony described in the stories, and that people spread rumours about him that he was discovered as the right man by a miracle introduced by the gods".⁵ At least, it does not sound incredible that the people of those times should have been 'guided by the belief that the judgment of God would fall upon the most deserving.'"